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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22869067">Canyon Walls, Dusted With Blood</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScorchedAlpine/pseuds/ScorchedAlpine'>ScorchedAlpine</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2019 [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Overwatch (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blackwatch Era, Blackwatch Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Broken Bones, Cave-In, Deadlock Gang, Deadlock Jesse McCree, Explosions, Hurt Jesse McCree, Whumptober 2019, Young Jesse McCree, gunpoint</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:01:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,581</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22869067</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScorchedAlpine/pseuds/ScorchedAlpine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>(Whumptober Prompt #5, Gunpoint)<br/>The only thing he can think as he stares down the barrel of the black revolver is that Jack is never going to let him live this down. Commander Gabriel Reyes, held at gunpoint by an angry teenage cowboy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jesse McCree &amp; Reaper | Gabriel Reyes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2019 [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638682</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>102</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Canyon Walls, Dusted With Blood</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gabriel stared down the barrel of a black revolver, hands held above his head.</p><p>Jack was never going to let him live this down. There was no way the kid was a day over 19, and he’d managed to get the drop on him. Only barely old enough to have to shave and he had a gun pointed at his head. Gabe was going to be worlds beyond pissed if he was killed by an angry teenaged cowboy.</p><p>Something about him reminded Gabe of a coyote. The way he stood that allowed him to be able to turn and bolt on a dime. Narrowed, wary brown eyes that didn’t seem panicked for a second, even as the gunfire outside the warehouse was drawing to a close. Blackwatch was winning; he could tell from the sound of the ammunition as it fired. Judging from the wily look in his eyes, he knew it too.</p><p>“Give it up, kid. You’re not getting out of this.”</p><p>The cowboy scoffed, doing something with his mouth that looked more like a snarl than a smile. Canyon dust covered him from hat to boots from fighting and sprinting through the red dirt and rocks, clinging to his clothes and skin like thinned paint.</p><p>He’d never understand why the Deadlocks wore so much leather and denim. It was well over a hundred degrees out and the kid was running around in jeans and most of a leather jacket. It was different when you lived there, he guessed.</p><p>“I get shot, you’re comin’ with me.” he bit out. Gabe sighed, putting his hands on his head instead of holding them up, pointedly not looking at the stark black ink of the gang tattoo on his forearm. He had a feeling this was going to take a while.</p><p>“Really? That’s your plan?”</p><p>“Damn straight.” he snarled.</p><p>His comm crackled before Delarosa’s voice chimed in his ear. /Delta and Alpha squads cleared./ she informed him.</p><p>“Yeah, and what’s that going to get you, huh? A longer sentence? That’s what you want?” he laughed, “Wow. What a prize.”</p><p>/Commander Reyes?/</p><p>The kid cocked back the hammer of his revolver, “How ‘bout I tell you in hell.”</p><p>His finger shifted towards the trigger just as the ground rocked, throwing them both off their feet as the entrance to the warehouse caved in with a blinding flash and an ear-splitting boom. Gabe rolled behind a wall as the kid dove to the side, narrowly avoiding a few tons of cliff rock as it crashed down from overhead.</p><p>Gabe flattened against the wall, curling up as small as he could and wrapping his arms over his head and neck until the wreckage settled.</p><p>/-eyes, please respond./ Delarosa urged. He coughed, pulling his beanie off and covering his mouth with it. It was pitch black, the thin light that had managed to get in before now completely cut off.</p><p>“Copy.” he growled, staggering to his feet. A beam above his head had caught a fair amount of debris, but he doubted the kid had gotten that lucky.</p><p>Delarosa sighed with relief. /Scared us there for a second, boss. What is your location?/</p><p>He tapped his ear to activate the comm, brushing the thick layer of rock dust off of him. “You see that explosion? I’m in the cave in, currently with one hostile. Brown-haired brown-eyed male, late teens, around 5’9, considered armed and dangerous. In jeans and a Deadlock jacket with the left sleeve torn off at the bicep.”</p><p>/Understood, sir. We’ll get you out when everything’s been secured. Hang tight./ she assured him.</p><p>He tapped his comm off. Not really much of a choice other than to hang tight, was there? He pulled the mini flashlight off his belt and clicked it on. Dust caught in the beam as he swept it over the wreckage.</p><p>They should have seen it coming. Deadlock was notoriously flashy and incredibly spiteful; blowing their warehouse just so anyone that caught them would have to dig it out was definitely to character for them.</p><p>His heart sank as the light fell over a revolver half-buried in a mound of rocky reddish-orange dirt. “Oh, shit…”</p><p>He crept forward, climbing over mounds of rock and twisted pieces of metal. Still loaded with one in the chamber. He took out the ammo, letting the shells drop to the floor as he pocketed the gun.</p><p>“Kid?” he called, scanning the surroundings for a flash of brown hair or black leather jacket, listening for the metallic chime of spurs.</p><p>The cowboy groaned in response, and Gabe turned 90 degrees to see him. Lying trapped on his back, covered in so much dirt and dust that he blended in perfectly with the surroundings. There was a cut over his eyebrow that leaked crimson sluggishly down the side of his face. He was scratched up and a little bloody, but not too bad off.</p><p>Gabe knelt next to him, putting his flashlight on a pile of rock and letting the light spill over them. “If you try to shiv me, I’m going to taze you.” he warned, tugging his beanie back on. The cowboy gave a dry laugh, cracking an eye to look at him. He’d pulled the yellow bandana over his nose and mouth in an attempt to filter out some of the choking dust in the span of minutes that Gabe had lost track of him, but yanked it down with his free hand as he stared at him.</p><p>Reyes had been right; the kid hadn’t gotten that lucky. His leg was pinned by a sheet of metal up to the thigh, rocks, wood, and heaps of dirt piled on top.</p><p>The kid was scared. There hadn’t been a lick of fear when he’d known trained agents were closing in, and that his two options were to die in a gunfight or spend most of his life if not all rotting in prison.</p><p>“We’re going to be here a while, and I’d rather not have to cut your leg off when backup comes, so let’s say we get you out of there?” he offered.</p><p>The kid just cursed in response, flopping his head back down. Taking it as permission, Gabe took hold of the metal sheet. “One, two… THREE.”</p><p>He lifted, the metal creaking and protesting as it shifted and shedding dirt. The kid crawled backwards, sliding his leg out with a groan. Once he was clear, Gabriel dropped the scrap of metal and rounded on him.</p><p>He was on his feet. More accurately, foot. The one that had been trapped hovered over the floor, an obvious refusal to put weight on it.</p><p>“Broken?”</p><p>A nod.</p><p>He cocked an eyebrow. “Leg?”</p><p>He acknowledged their temporary ‘hey, we’re both trapped together’ truce with a one word answer. “Ankle.”</p><p>Gabe sighed, motioning him over. He didn’t move, tensed like a feral animal. If anything he looked more wary than before.</p><p>“For the love of- at least take off the boot.”</p><p>To his immense surprise… the kid actual listened. He carefully lowered himself down to sit on the cracked concrete, moving to toe off the shoe before thinking better of it. He gritted his teeth and slid it off, pulling off his sock as well and holding his leg up to keep his foot from touching the floor.</p><p>Gabe moved slowly, doing his best not to spook him. Close up, he couldn’t help but notice how young the kid was. He’d thought 19 or 20, but now he was doubting if he was even a legal adult or not.</p><p>The tissue was already swelling, angry and bruising. He didn’t touch, but Gabe could see the slight bump and section of raising that meant broken bone.“Congrats, you also broke your foot.”</p><p> </p><p>--------</p><p> </p><p>They get bored. Every so often, Delarosa’s voice chimes in his ear to give him an update. The blast had brought down a good chunk of the cliff, and it hadn’t exactly been structurally sound before Deadlock had given it a taste of C4.</p><p>They trade names, and end up throwing a tennis ball McCree found in the debris back and forth for a while.</p><p>He’s barely 18. Yet somehow, at such a young age, he’d gotten into a position in his life where he was wanted, in a gang, and getting in gunfights in a dusty canyon. Gabe didn’t doubt that the kid would have pulled the trigger if the explosion hadn’t detonated at that very moment. Maybe not shot to kill, but shot all the same.</p><p>He was never going to be normal. Even if they tried him as a kid and only on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, larceny, and arms trafficking (they didn’t have anything to tie him directly to the murders committed by the gang, save for the tattoo on his arm) he was going to serve time. And considering the look in his eyes when he’d pointed his sidearm at Gabe, he knew in his heart that the kid was never going to have a normal life.</p><p>He throws the ball back to McCree, who doesn’t even have to track it with his eyes to catch it and throw it back. Fantastic hand-eye coordination. He was perched on a crate, leg resting elevated on a hunk of rock.</p><p>Gabe began to mentally calculate the fallout of recruiting the kid. Otherwise, he didn’t doubt he’d land himself in an early grave before he ever even set foot out of jail.</p>
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